


Colors Never Seen (an ocean in a sink)

by gremlins-came-and-got-me (Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Discussion of Getting Together, Implied Non-Consensual Relationships, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Panic Attack, Sheriff Stilinski Knows About Werewolves, Stiles Stilinski is Eighteen Years Old, full shift derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28256721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark/pseuds/gremlins-came-and-got-me
Summary: Derek goes missing for a week, and when they find him, he's a wolf and he might be feral.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 8
Kudos: 143





	Colors Never Seen (an ocean in a sink)

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from The Daylights - _Black Dove_.
> 
> Inspired by [this post from Pale-Silver-Comb's tumblr](https://pale-silver-comb.tumblr.com/post/160780168217/fun-wolf-fact-to-think-about-wolves-greet).

~ * ~

“Stiles!” Scott yells.

There isn’t anything to do but brace himself. So, Stiles closes his eyes, not wanting the last image he sees to be a feral wolf snapping its jaws around his neck.

Instead, he feels hot breath panting over his face and then a warm, wet tongue sliding down his skin.

His eyes pop open in time to see the wolf bow its head, tongue still lolling against him.

“Derek?” Stiles tries, one hand coming up to cup the back of the wolf’s head. Derek huffs out a breath, high pitched, almost whining, and then licks Stiles’ face again.

“Stiles?” Scott calls. “What’s going on?”

Stiles pats at Derek, scratching over his head. Derek whines, pressing against Stiles and nosing at him, washing him gently. “I think he’s just scared. Isn’t that right, big guy?”

“Stiles, are you sure you’re okay?” Allison asks, and Derek whines high in his throat, burying his snout against the hollow of Stiles’ throat.

Stiles glances up to see that she’s still aiming her crossbow at Derek.

“Hey, come on now,” he tells her. “He’s not hurting me, see?” He scratches Derek’s ears again to show her that he’s not doing anything except alternatively licking or whining.

Allison steps closer, her aim never wavering, and suddenly Stiles falls backward, overgrown wolf thumping down on top of him, almost crying as he scrambles to get closer.

“Back the fuck up right now,” Stiles tells Allison, surprised when she actually listens, moving back at least three paces. “Now put down the fucking weapon.”

That she doesn’t do. “Stiles,” she says, pinched face.

“Stiles,” Scott pipes up, “what if he loses control?”

“Does this look like he’s losing control?”

Despite the way the wind was knocked out of him, and the way that his back will ache with tenacity after this, Stiles doesn’t feel the least bit in danger from Derek. Allison with her crossbow bolts and Scott with his claws is another matter.

So far, the only thing Derek is doing to Stiles is trying to seek protection from him.

He’s trembling so hard his fur shakes and he’s panting too hard to even try to wash Stiles’ face now.

If he were human, Stiles thinks Derek would be having a panic attack. And it makes so much sense that he’d seek comfort. It almost makes sense that he’s seeking it from Stiles.

“I need you guys to leave. Right now.” Neither of them moves. Stiles pats Derek. “I’m so sorry about this, Derek.” He clears his throat. “He’s having a panic attack,” he announces. “If you don’t leave, I can’t get him calmed down. He won’t lose control but he also won’t shift back.”

Saliva, thick and foamy, coats Derek’s muzzle, and Stiles can feel his heartbeat rattling in his chest while his belly pumps up and down from the heaving breaths he’s barely managing.

“Scott,” Stiles implores, “what would you do if it were me having a panic attack?”

Scott cocks his head. “I’d do whatever I could to calm you down and get you breathing properly again,” he answers.

“And Derek is having a panic attack right now. Trust me. I need you to back up right now. Please?”

Scott finally shifts back and takes a step back. He also reaches out to Allison and lowers her crossbow. She doesn’t look like she agrees with Scott, but she lets him lead her back until they’re out of Stiles’ human hearing.

Not for a second does Stiles think Derek can’t hear them, but he does seem to relax marginally.

Stiles pats at him, scratching at his ears again. “Wanna sit up?” he asks when Derek isn’t panting as hard. Derek huffs a little and then licks at Stiles’ face, close to his mouth.

Stiles read somewhere that wolves tended to exchange kisses like hugs. For bacteria reasons, he doesn’t want to let Derek stick his tongue in his mouth while he’s in wolf-form, but he wouldn’t be opposed if Derek stuck his human tongue down his throat.

Derek shifts, sniffing pointedly at a certain part of Stiles’ anatomy.

“What?” Stiles asks. “It’s not like I can just turn off my attraction to you, dude. You’re just lucky I’ve got good self-restraint and don’t jump your bones 24/7.”

Derek tilts his head, leans into Stiles, and noses at his stomach and chest, head-butting him lightly.

“No, I’m up.” Stiles stands up, reaches down, and runs his hands through Derek’s soft fur. He needs a bath in the way a dog that rolls around in the most stinky thing he can find. It’s because Derek’s been missing for the past week. None of them had any idea where he’d gone, but only Stiles cleared his schedule completely to go looking.

Scott and Allison had accompanied him because today is Sunday and boring if you’ve got all your homework done, which Stiles hasn’t because he’s been busy looking for Derek for a week.

Derek whines, licking at Stiles’ hand before head butting him again softly.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Stiles tells him. He’ll get to the bottom of why Derek disappeared later. Right now, he leads Derek to his Jeep and opens the passenger door.

Derek stares at him almost amusedly as Stiles fastens the seatbelt around him.

“Hey, can’t be too careful,” Stiles says around a smile. “I may be a good driver, but even I have days where the road just wants to kill me.”

Derek yawns widely, and Stiles’ heart thumps extra loud at the little yip on the end of it.

Derek probably knows that Stiles thinks he’s fucking adorable right now. Stiles doesn’t care. Derek deserves to know that he is loved and wanted.

It just sucks that Stiles is the only one who seems to want to tell Derek these things.

Wolf!Derek isn’t much less quiet than Human!Derek, and Stiles finds himself checking on him often. Derek sways in his seat, head dropping for a moment before it snaps up. Poor thing is exhausted.

Stiles parks behind his dad’s cruiser, thinks better of it, and parks on the street. Then he realizes that his dad is home and he now has to sneak a big black wolf past him.

Derek gives him an unimpressed snort when Stiles waves his hands at him to get down and belly crawl around the house to the back door.

“Stiles,” his dad says, throwing the whole pretense right out in the open where it can barely stand under the weight of his father’s glare. “Why is Derek Hale sitting on my lawn?”

Derek sticks his tongue out again when he pants. It looks deliberate, and Stiles stifles a desperate giggle.

“How’d you know it was Derek?” Stiles asks. His dad waves his phone at him, which Stiles takes to mean that Scott or Allison texted him. He’d bet Scott. He doesn’t think Allison has his dad’s number, even after the fiasco that was junior year. “Okay, yeah. Can he stay with us until he shifts back?”

Dad looks to Derek, gaze softening. “Sure,” he agrees easily. Stiles squints suspiciously. Dad laughs. “Look, Scott was not very kind on the phone. He said that he was afraid that you were going to get bitten. Then he mentioned that you said Derek was having a panic attack.” Dad sighs. “Stiles, I’ve gone through panic attacks with both you and your mom. The best thing is to get Derek somewhere safe, and apparently that safe place is you.”

“So is it okay if I give him a bath?”

“Why don’t we see if he gets his opposable thumbs back first?”

Derek refuses to look at either of them as he trots into the house and then up the stairs. Stiles has a feeling he’s going to have to dig Derek out of his closet later, but Dad pulls him into the kitchen under the guise of helping out with supper.

Stiles finally escapes when the casserole has to go into the oven for an hour. Immediately he runs to his room. He finds a wet, naked Derek Hale asleep on his bed.

Derek’s on his stomach, blanket pulled over his hips, but one bare leg is sticking out, knee bent, and his arms are under his head.

Stiles just stares, his throat working to swallow nothing, his mouth gone dry. Derek looks good as a human, and better in Stiles’ bed.

Stiles’ fingers twitch. He wants to trace Derek’s tattoo, follow it with his tongue. Go down the slope of his back and lower, wants to see how far Derek will let him go.

When Derek turns his head a little, one eye opening, Stiles’ throat finally clicks. “Hey,” he coughs a little, “so, um, my birthday was in April.”

It’s May now.

Derek closes his eye and rolls over, the blanket pooling beneath him.

“I know you want this,” he says softly, but he doesn’t open his eyes. Stiles frowns before moving to the bed. He digs the blanket out from under Derek and drapes it over his lap. Then he rearranges it so that it covers most of Derek’s stomach and chest.

“But you don’t,” Stiles says, sitting next to him. Derek hums, flicks the blanket down so that it’s just barely covering himself. Stiles readjusts it, says sharply, “Don’t.”

Derek’s eyes open. Blue. Stiles leans in close, presses a closed-mouth kiss to his cheek.

“I was just letting you know that I’m legally an adult now. I didn’t mean that we should hop right into things.”

“But,” Derek starts. Stiles shakes his head, and Derek falls quiet again.

“You’re right: I do want you, but I don’t want you if you don’t want it too.”

“I might never be okay enough for that,” Derek admits quietly, surprised, like he’s not just saying it for Stiles.

“And that’s okay too. Look. You turned into a wolf for a week, now you’re in my bed. My dad might kick you out if he knows you’ve shifted back, but any time that you need something like you just did, come to me. I won’t ever make it weird.”

“I can smell you,” Derek points out. “I always smell everything. It makes it harder to say no because…Because I’m the one that makes you smell like that so I should—”

“Should what, Derek? Help me ‘take care of it’?” Stiles laughs a little bitterly. “No. It’s not you who makes me smell like that. That’s me. And I can take care of it. I’ve got a perfectly working hand and some toys.”

“I know,” Derek says seriously, tapping the side of his nose.

Stiles snorts at him. “What I’m trying to say is that as much as I’d like to jump all over you, I’m not going to. I respect your right to say no, even if that no is nonverbal. Understood?”

Derek nods. He sits up, letting the blanket fall to his waist. “I may need to borrow some clothes,” he says.

“Good thing I bulked up last year, huh?” Stiles jokes as he goes to his dresser and pulls out a stretchy t-shirt and some sweatpants. “I don’t think my boxers will fit though,” he says, wistfully, thinking of Derek’s thighs and the package between them.

Before it can get much worse, he shakes himself and hands the clothing to Derek, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going back downstairs. Dad and I made tator tot casserole. You’re welcome to stay for supper.”

Then he beelines for the door, intent on running away before his boner gets even more awkward and he has to rub one out where Derek can do more than smell it.

“Stiles?” Derek calls when he’s almost out the door.

“Yes?” Stiles refuses to turn around, affording Derek that bare bit of privacy while he covers his bare bits.

“Thanks. For looking for me, for offering me sanctuary. For not making me do something I’m not ready for.”

“No worries, dude.” Stiles does turn then, finds Derek already dressed, Stiles’ school bag hooked over one shoulder. “What are you doing with my homework?”

Derek shrugs. “You spent a week looking for me. Are you going to turn down my help to get your backlog cleared?”

No. Stiles won’t turn that down. And later, after supper, when Dad is trying to get Derek to watch baseball on TV with him while Stiles finishes his calculus worksheet and Derek proofs it, Stiles thinks he could get used to nights like this.

Derek is freaking adorable as a wolf or as a human, and Stiles will always come looking for him when he’s lost. Always.

~ End ~

**Author's Note:**

> Derek was having a bad week where he was living in his memories of his past until he shifted and ran to protect himself from the memories he couldn’t escape. He and Stiles spend months discussing where they want their relationship to go and slowly they find what works for them.
> 
> I just wanted to write something short, so if anyone wants to write those discussions or their getting together, go for it.
> 
> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
> This is my "official" 100th posted Teen Wolf work. I am going to be deleting two works in the next couple of months: Broken & Beautiful (cover) will be added to the full Broken & Beautiful fic and Voting Roulette will be deleted outright. My plan for 2021 is to work on and finish as many of the remaining 12 VR stories that haven't been posted as I can.
> 
> Visit [my Tumblr](https://1989dreamer.tumblr.com) for updates.


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